Common Nouns Equals Anonymity
by Bagting Hangin
Summary: A fic with no proper nouns in it.


Disclaimer: Glee isn't mine.

A/N: I got a review once that said that using anything but a person's name to refer to them was clumsy grammar. I'm taking it as a challenge, not really in an aggressive or even passive-aggressive way, just a challenge. Period. End of story. I hope you like, and I hope my grammar isn't too clumsy in this.

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><p>Common Nouns Equals Anonymity<p>

by Bagting Hangin 

They were seated in a secluded spot in an exclusive restaurant, just the two of them. One man had ungelled dark, curly hair, while the other one had a mane of a lighter brown hue. The first man, a slightly sunkissed one, was dressed rather casually in a toffee-colored three-quarters-sleeved shirt and dark-brown-colored pants and boots, while the fairer one of the pair wore a rather simple outfit as well - just a plain dark-blue-colored button-down, standard-fit blue jeans and a well-loved pair of sneakers - quite the far cry from the haute coutoure his job often asked of him to sport.

The boy with the chestnut-colored hair wrung his hands nervously and bit his lower lip. He looked every which way down except at the man in front of him. His voice wavered as he asked, "So, have you thought about it?"

The raven-haired one nodded. "Yes, I have. I've thought about it a lot."

"And your answer is?"

"My answer is no."

"Why?"

"Because while the world may think it's perfect now, one day it won't be right. Not for me, and not for you."

The brunet placed his hands palms up on the table, silently asking the other boy to place his hands in his. The other obliged, but his touch was light and while not unwilling, there was none of the fire that was in the paler boy's grasp. "Can we not live for today? Can you give me a chance?"

The onyx-haired man with the green-hazel-golden eyes spoke once more, his eyes boring into green-blue-grey ones. "It would be wrong of me to. I'm not so cruel as to let you live waiting - dreading a time when we can no longer go on, just because the world has stopped saying yes."

The brunet let his beloved's hands go and folded his hands together, as if he was praying to all the powers that be to change the other's mind. "I cannot change what I am for you."

The other man took his own hands from where they had lain on the table and rested his elbows on the surface instead, his fingers now laced together as well in a contemplative gesture, his chin atop them and his eyes firmly on the table cloth. "It pains me to say this, but what you say you cannot do, you yourself are asking of me."

The more feminine of the two raised one porcelain hand and slid it up his arm in a sort of self-hugging gesture. "I'm not ordinarily so selfish. I've just never wanted someone as badly as I've wanted you. I had to ask. Thank you for your answer."

"You're welcome." He took his wallet out and paid for the dinner before leaving without another word.

It was another hour before the chocolate-haired man moved. If he didn't know any better, he'd have said he'd stop breathing for about as long but when he finally came to his senses, he found that it was almost midnight and decided it was time he went home.

He drove for the few minutes it took to get from the restaurant to his apartment almost as if he was on auto-pilot. He was conscientious and careful as usual, but his eyes, while unfailingly on the road, were also unseeing somehow, and kept replaying the events of the night when it had been young.

They'd just finished working when he'd asked the man he loved out and propositioned him. Not in an improper sense, mind - he was above that. He wanted something real. He was on top of the world and he wanted to share it with someone. He wanted to share it with someone who would understand, someone the world seemed to approve of - the only man who seemed to be his rightful match, and he had gotten turned down. Oddly enough, he didn't feel any pain. He actually felt numb, if one could call that a feeling. He couldn't feel anything. Was this the opposite of hurt? It didn't seem so. He was drowning in so much pain he couldn't feel anymore, probably. Yes, that was what it was.

He pulled up in front of his building's basement and got waved in by the friendly old guard. He smiled warmly and waved back, but as soon as the plank descended behind his vehicle, he once again turned toward the path in front of him and the nondescript expression returned to his face.

The walk from his parking space to the elevator went uneventfully enough. He just put one foot in front of the other, vaguely sensing space and distance in his periphery, his body doing the necessary to transport him from where he was to where he was supposed to be: Home. Alone. Without him. Without anyone in this big city so far from home. And yet when he got to his door, someone was there - someone he hadn't expected. No, it wasn't his beloved, but a younger colleague with blond hair and beautiful blue eyes. The fair-haired boy had been sitting on his Welcome rug like a loyal puppy waiting for his owner. They stayed there, one standing and the other seated, looking at each other for a while until the blond broke the silence. "Hi," he said.

"Hello. Would you like to come in?" the owner of the apartment said.

"Thanks."

They went into the apartment together, the host immediately offering his guest a seat as he busied to make them both drinks: nothing alcoholic, just cola in glasses with ice in them, which was, incidentally, the only thing he kept by way of beverages, not really liking the non-taste of water.

For the second time that night, the guest thanked his host, but he hadn't come here for a non-inebriating nightcap - he was here on a mission. He twirled his finger in his glass and listened to the ice cubes make a soft tinkling sound as they bumped into each other before he spoke. "Listen. I... I know you were with him just now. I just kind of figured. You always have this sad look after you've said goodbye for the night."

"No, I don't," was the denial.

"Yes, you do. And I... I want to stop it. I want you to go out with me. I may not be half as talented as he is and I know that you don't love me, but the way you look at him -" the blond focused his eyes on his host's coffee-colored ones, "it's the way I look at you. I just want a chance to work for having that look to be turned to me. He can give you the world, but he won't. Me, I don't have much, but it's all yours. And not only for a time. Not only until the world stops approving. I'M yours. For always. Because I love you, the way he doesn't. So please, please allow me to try."

Glasz eyes considered for a moment before the lips below them said, "Okay."

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

A/N: The blond is Aaron C. Page. I love him as Logan in CP Coulter's Dalton. Sorry for the madness. My muses are persistent and they keep singing "Raise Your Glass" in the Number 2 iTunes album on repeat. LoL.


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